G7 leaders vow to help Brazil fight fires and repair damage

Leaders of the Group of Seven nations said today they were preparing to help Brazil fight the fires burning across the Amazon rainforest and repair the damage, even as tens of thousands of soldiers were being deployed to fight the blazes that have caused global alarm.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the summit leaders were nearing an agreement on how to support Brazil and said the agreement would involve both technical and financial mechanisms "so that we can help them in the most effective way possible".

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country and others will talk with Brazil about reforestation in the Amazon once fires there have been extinguished.

"Of course (this is) Brazilian territory, but we have a question here of the rainforests that is really a global question," she said.

"The lung of our whole Earth is affected, and so we must find common solutions."

Pope Francis also added his voice to the chorus of concern over the fires in Brazil, which borders his homeland of Argentina, and urged people to pray so that "they are controlled as quickly as possible".

He told the public in St Peter's Square that "we're all worried" about the vast Amazon fires. He warned that that green "lung of forest is vital for our planet".

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday sent 44,000 soldiers to help battle the fires that are scattered across his nation's share of the vast Amazon, an overall region ten times the size of Texas that is seen as a global bulwark against climate change.

The country's satellite monitoring agency has recorded more than 41,000 fires in the Amazon region so far this year – with more than half of those coming this month alone.

Experts say most of the fires are set by farmers or ranchers clearing existing farmland. But the same monitoring agency has reported a sharp increase in deforestation this year as well.

Brazil's federal police agency announced today it would investigate reports that farmers in the state of Para, one of those most affected by the blazes, had called for "a day of fire" to ignite fires on August 10.

Local news media said the group organised over WhatsApp to show support for Mr Bolsonaro's efforts to loosen environmental regulations.

Justice Minister Sergio Moro, who oversees the police, said on Twitter that Mr Bolsonaro "asked for a rigorous investigation" and said "the criminal fires will be severely punished".

Critics have accused Mr Bolsonaro's pro-development policies of encouraging farmers and ranchers to increase efforts to strip away the forest, though the president has issued repeated pledges recently to protect the area, and backed that up by sending in soldiers and other federal forces.

Asked if he would speak with Mr Macron, Mr Bolsonaro said yesterday, "If he calls me, I will answer. I am being extremely well-mannered with him even though he called me 'a liar'".

Meanwhile, Bolivian President Evo Morales said today he would welcome aid in fighting his own country's wildfires, which have scorched more than 2744,000 hectares of land in the Chiquitanía region over the past two weeks.

He told a news conference that he had accepted offers of assistance from the leaders of Spain, Chile and Paraguay.